Ratings and Reviews by End Master

This is one of those games that starts straddling the fence of graphic IF, however if something like Tass Times in Tonetown is on here, then this one still qualifies.

I bought this one for the Amiga 500 and saw Elvira on the cover. Now at the time I already had the Elvira Mistress of the Dark adventure game, so I actually thought this would be similar, but unlike that one, the gameplay was severely different. (And Elvira had very little to do with the game, she was just on the cover as eye candy as usual) Also learned that this one actually came out before the first “official” Elvira game, so it could potentially be considered a predecessor to the company’s more well known horror based games.

Gameplay is a mix of text based commands and clickable objects and verbs. However, if you wanted to you could play the entire game using nothing but text based commands. In fact in some cases typing in commands is necessary for the sake of precision, but most of the time you’re probably using both.

You do not control a character on the screen, you see everything in a first person view and when you move to a new location, the screen changes to that particular location (No moving camera) There are several NPCs to interact with and they will go about their business and be in different locations at different times. You’ll even see them walking around on screen when they’re moving to different locations so it’s a living world with a day and night cycle.

Okay so now let’s get on with the storyline. You’ve returned to the small English town that you grew up in to figure out what’s happened to your father who was the pastor of the church. The opening scene of the game pretty much gives that mystery away, so it isn’t really a spoiler, but the Devil has killed your father, replaced him and is trying to take over the town. It isn’t really spelled out, but you’ve got a time limit of four days to stop the evil from taking over completely.

First off let me say that the game has a creepy mood to it all throughout. Even when it’s broad daylight and there are people around, there’s always an underlining sense of danger. Especially since some of the villagers are already under the influence of the Devil or are outright monsters. There aren’t too many locations to go to, but most locations are detailed so you’ll probably be searching every drawer, cabinet and the like you can.

There are a lot of items you can take (and a lot you can even carry at the same time) but most aren’t going to be useful. In fact you somewhat have to be careful with just taking things too. In some cases, people won’t let you in the first place while they’re present. And in the major case, the local constable WILL arrest you for having stolen items on your person or even in your room at the Inn where you stay. He doesn’t know immediately, but linger about a day or so with stolen items and he’ll suddenly arrest you if you have them which will lead to a premature ending of you going to jail. (One of the kinder endings) Also keep in mind, that breaking and entering into people’s homes to snoop around is another great way to getting arrested if they happen to be home. You can’t just go around being a normal “adventurer” going everywhere you please taking things!

You’ll definitely be saving and replaying portions of the game a bit, because besides the overall time limit, there are missable events as well. One major event occurs right near the beginning of the game and if you don’t investigate immediately, you’ll miss out and you won’t be able to complete the game. Certain areas are dangerous at certain times unless you have the right item too.

Which brings me to the wonderful death scenes, if you mess up, you’ll be treated to a cool close up of your dead face with various wounds of how you died. (Bite marks, burns, etc). Apparently there was a first run version of this game which had death face of you after being garroted with your eyes bugged out and your tongue hanging out, but this got axed in later versions of the game for being too gruesome. Sort of amusing considering Horror Soft’s later Elvira games had way more gory death scenes than anything in this game. (Hell, Jack the Ripper had a gory picture of a naked woman in it and that came out two years earlier)

The game is of course firmly in the horror genre, but there is more than a bit of mystery going on as well since you have to uncover which townspeople are evil and either report them to the constable with evidence so he can take care of them, or deal with them yourself. Walking around the town at night can be pretty dangerous, so it’s odd that the constable is safe from these same dangers. Oversight on the developers part or is he in on the satanic conspiracy?

Well you’ll have to play the game and find out. As far as I know it’s available on GoG.

I enjoyed this game a lot and would come back to it again and again. Highly recommended for anyone that likes horror IFs.

So here we are at the end of the trilogy and honestly I’m glad to be done with writing the reviews of these Zork games as I was when I was playing them.

Pretty sure this one I got out of a sake of completeness (Much like I’m doing this review!) and I hadn’t even beaten the second one at the time when I got it. But hey, the 80s had just ended, C64 games were becoming a little harder to find and the games you could find in stores were a lot cheaper so why not right?

Now if the second game has been said to be the more humorous one of the trio, the third one is generally considered to be the serious business one of the three. I’d definitely agree with that assessment. It also feels like it has more of a storyline as well since it isn’t just a simple treasure hunt.

As with the last two installments there’s a timer which will make the game impossible if you don’t do something within that limit. In this case a fairly severe one that definitely increases the difficulty since you won’t necessarily realize it. Though this isn’t really new in Infocom games in general. Just chalk it up to the game insisting on messing with you. There’s a maze-puzzle which is probably the worst of the torment, but considering this is the last of the trilogy, it makes sense that everything should be a lot harder.

I can’t really add too much more other than it’s a solid ending to the trilogy and there’s nothing really wrong with it. The writing is even better in conveying the tone of this one, indeed it probably helped keep my interest longer than if it had been more like the last two games. However, it’s just a case that by that point I lost complete interest in Zork!

I wonder if the writing had been like this from the start of the first game, I would have cared more about the series as a whole. Oh well, no use in looking too much into it, since I’m already set in my ways.

Of course as always though, if you’re into these older style IFs and enjoyed the Zork setting up to this point then you’d want to give this one a try.

A few years after beating Zork 1, I got Zork 2 figuring I liked the first one well enough to beat it, the second one would probably entertain as well. I suppose it did to some degree, but it really didn’t hold my attention like the first one did for some reason.

It’s been suggested that Zork 2 was the more humorous one of the original trilogy, which I’d agree with since I do remember more amusing bits in it. Even a simple description of the dragon being annoyed by your attempt to kill him were worth a chuckle. Might not have been Hitchhiker’s, but there was definitely more personality in this one compared to the first.

One major bit of the game which kept me engaged was the wizard who continues to pop up to troll you. Sometimes resulting in your death if he cast certain spells that really hampered you in a particular location. One example I can think of that happened to me was him causing me to float in the topiary which resulted in the hedge monsters there eventually kill me. It worked in your favor on a rare occasion though as sometimes the wizard’s spells would fail and nothing would happen.

The wizard and his actions would probably considered grossly unfair and random nowadays (Actually it was back then too) but it provided more entertainment for me. Another plus was the lack of a huge pointless maze though a few of the more frustrating puzzles probably made up for that.

It’s still a solid game in most ways, but I think this was the one where I started to realize that I wasn’t really into the whole Zork setting.

I’ve never really been heavily into the Zork series. The lore of it has never particularly captivated me either, but I always enjoyed the concept of the grue. A lot has already been said about Zork so there’s little more I can add, but I’ll add my opinion anyway because that’s what this place is for.

Honestly, there’s no reason why I should even like the first game as much as I did (and still do to some extent). It’s a bare bones treasure hunt with no real direction on what to do, a semi-hidden timer involving the lamp, lots of chances of getting into a walking dead scenario and worst of all there’s a maze.

Still, something about it kept me coming back. I could chalk this up to a simple “It was the old days and you just played the games you had no matter what.” or the fact that I couldn’t get very far in Hitchhiker’s at the time, but there was a genuine sense of wonder with the exploration given the different locations you could go to.

While I’m sure some of this is nostalgia, but at the time when I played, it really did feel like playing a dungeon crawler in text form with an emphasis on puzzles. I might have liked it even more if there had been a few more foes to kill other than the troll and the thief. (Not sure if you could ever kill the cyclops, I always got past him by saying the name he feared) The underground complex always felt a bit empty compared to more traditional dungeons, then again most Infocom games were always a bit spartan when it came to NPC interactions.

Other than the god awful maze, I never felt too frustrated by it despite some of the more convoluted puzzles. I think that’s due though to feeling like I had a lot of freedom to move about and explore. So I never felt like I was confined at least.

I would have to agree with a few of the other reviews already here that the Zork “style” of IF isn’t so much outdated as it was pretty common for its day so naturally people eventually got sick of it. Same with most things that are overdone. Today there are a lot more folks doing IFs so there is more variety of finding what you might be into.

So for those that might not have played this game and are interested in the “old style” of what IFs used to go for, you can’t really go wrong with the first Zork game.

Ever have a great idea only to find out it’s been done already? Well that’s Seedship for me.

I once had a concept to do a CYOA very similar to Seedship, but ended up putting it on the back burner to work on other projects. Honestly not sure if I ever would have gotten around to it given my backlog of story ideas, but when I randomly discovered Seedship one day and played through it multiple times I was like “Well I guess I can focus on other projects.”

Yet at the same time my idea of the story of an AI controlling a space ark would have been very different (Specifically very story driven as far as choice and not stat based), and it isn’t like it’s a brand new concept entirely. (Indeed I got my idea originally from various movies I’ve watched) So who knows I may return to the concept of a Space Ark CYOA one day.

For now though, we have Seedship. And I really enjoyed this game.

The different random events and planets give it a lot of replay value. While this one is definitely a bit more on the technical side with the stats taking center stage, for me there is enough ongoing “story” there to keep me more engaged. (Unlike say Suspended). Plus I also like to see outcomes of less than optimal runs. Seeing the remains of the human race colonize a new planet only to blow it all up and exist in a post apocalyptic hell world is always amusing.

Probably the only disappointment I have is you lose points if you encounter another alien race and you end up genociding or enslaving them. Why? As the AI your main goal was to ensure the survival of the human race, xeno lives don’t matter. I’m guessing the game though was encouraging more of a Star Trek society rather than a Warhammer 40K one.

Despite that one glaring issue, it’s definitely one I’ll go back to every now and then.

Suspended is another one I played through the Lost Treasures compilation. I actually do remember seeing the alternate box version with the neat cryo “mask” in stores, but once again was never one I bothered with.

Just as well since I doubt I would have gotten into the actual game that much as a younger child.

Now entire concept itself of being a meat popsicle that acts as a sort of integrated brain for a greater computer system that runs vital aspects of a planet is pretty intriguing. Add in the whole fact that the system is severely damaged due to disasters and you have to fix it before more people die is also a good plot motivator. In fact it reminds me a bit of another game called Seedship except more complex in terms of the challenges you have to accomplish to make sure more people don’t die.

Which brings me to the actual gameplay, which is, well another review said it best that it’s more like a simulation than anything else. Controlling various damaged robots to fix various things before they send someone from above to shut you down believing you’ve gone mad and are the one trying to destroy the world rather than save it.

I think that’s one of the plot holes of the game, of why if they could send in techs, why don’t they just do that to fix things themselves. I know there’s some stuff in the feelies that implies the government is just very inefficient to think that far ahead, but I think it could have been handled a bit better.

For example I could see some of the puzzles including trying to help the actual human techs that get down there to reach places that even you wouldn’t normally be able to (Or even fix the multi-purpose bot!) and if you did something wrong, the human techs die during the ongoing disasters eventually all leading up to all life on the surface being wiped out or destroyed to such a degree that nobody is coming down to do anything for a very long time leaving you to linger in cryo until the systems completely fail resulting in your death.

In any case, wasn’t exactly my thing, but like I said it was a good idea. Endings on how efficiently you saved lives I suppose adds replay value for some into more technical games like this.

However, I enjoyed the addition of “impossible mode” where the game just has the planet’s sun explode killing everyone anyway. (I mean impossible doesn’t mean “very hard” it means can’t be done!)